Never Plateau

There are ways to guarantee you’ll never plateau when you’re working toward the fittest body or losing weight. Plateauing can be extremely frustrating and even lead to enough discouragement that you quit your workout program entirely. People who workout on their own often find that they plateau for months seeing very little improvement. There are several reasons for it and ways to prevent it.

Your level of fitness improves, but you don’t change your workout program to match it.

This is one of the major problems causing plateau and also a great reason to use the services of a personal trainer. I track the progress of each of my clients and as they improve, change the workout to match that improvement. It’s easiest to explain by considering the amount of weight you can lift. If you come to me and after I assess your fitness level, suggest reps using five pound weights. The number of reps prescribed and their weight is based on your present level of fitness. Every time you exercise, you’ll be stronger. It will become easier and easier, until its second nature. If you never increase the reps or weight, you’ll plateau.

Your body becomes more efficient at doing a specific group of exercises.

As you become more accustomed to specific exercises, your body learns to do them more capably and use fewer calories. It’s like any skill. The longer you do something, the easier it is to do. You can do any task quicker and more efficiently. By mixing new routines in frequently and using new ways of exercising, you’ll always keep your body on alert and continue to make fitness strides. You’ll keep your body from adapting to each workout, working it harder in the process and burning more calories.

See if you’ve really plateaued or whether it’s something else.

While eating healthy isn’t dieting and you can occasionally enjoy a few non healthy treats, you may be indulging in those a little more often than you think. Look at your food intake if weight loss is the problem. Track it for a week and see if you’re eating more of the “special treats.” If you’re not and back on track for weight loss, it might have been the problem. Also check your level of commitment to your workout. Are you putting everything into it. Normally, as a personal trainer, I will notice when you don’t. Finally, make sure you get adequate sleep at night.

If you started out well over weight or totally out of shape, expect progress to be greater in the beginning. If you’re losing weight, even though you may not be losing all the weight you did at first, you should still see some progress.

Focus on the gains you see. Sometimes there are even dips where you find doing exercises more difficult. If you haven’t shed a single pound, but lost inches, you haven’t plateaued. You’ve replaced fat tissue with muscle tissue. Muscle tissue weighs more, but is more compact, so you’ll have lost inches.

Make sure you stay hydrated and drink plenty of water. Water not only hydrates you, but acts as a diuretic that can help you shed pounds from water weight gain. Add a little lemon to it or make green tea for another alternative.

Just changing the order of your routine can often help avoid a plateau.